Garden Ground
by Significant Owl
Summary: Morning in the garden. Hetness, cabbages, and a little destiny angst. Merlin/Gwen, post-Poisoned Chalice.


The fever burned him up as it burned itself out, leaving only ash behind, cold and dry and shifting. Merlin sat with knees like a trap, tight to his chest. He should be inside the castle, where there was warmth to steal; actually, he should probably be back underneath his blankets. Arthur would allow him that weakness. Arthur would understand.

Part of the problem, that.

He didn't hear Gwen coming, but really he should have. The pebbles under her feet had surely crunched; the cloth of her skirts must have rustled. But all he caught was the chill of the wind, until suddenly she was standing in front of him in her smock and yellow kirtle, saying, "Merlin? Why are you lurking in the cabbages?"

Merlin was well-used to that tone from her, and to that tilt of her head, the one that said she couldn't quite work him out, try as she might. Usually he liked them both; usually they made him smile, and take a little private humour from just how true that was. But today her lips were pressed into new lines of worry that he didn't like at all.

"I'm not _lurking_. Gaius needed something, so I came to get it. It's what I do." He half-shrugged. Looking up at Gwen was looking into the morning sun, and he closed his eyes against it. Behind his lids burst fire, new and remembered.

"What did he need?"

"Oh. Ah." Casting about, Merlin reached behind the cabbages, snapped off something vaguely leafy, and waved it at Gwen. "This. So - all taken care of." He tried flashing a grin, and hopping to his feet; neither came off perfectly, but they certainly could have come off worse.

Gwen's brow knitted. "Tell me, does Gaius use that in many of his draughts?"

"Oh yeah," Merlin said, nodding. "Uses it all the time." There was a pause, in which Merlin attempted to nonchalantly smush all the leafty bits down into his palm. He was starting to think that what he'd picked was in fact a carrot-top.

And then there was warmth, her warmth; a hand on his forehead, and another curved along his neck; Merlin swallowed, and stared.

"Sorry," Gwen said, snatching her hands away. "I suppose when you were ill I got used to - I was helping Gaius, you see. And I wanted to know, so -"

"It's all right."

"But you are not. You look like a ghost, and feel like ice."

"You really know how to flatter a person, don't you?"

Gwen lifted her chin. "It does not seem like Gaius, to send you out here when you are not yet well."

"I think he was making a point." Merlin sighed. "When I come back, he can declare me not fit enough for my duties with Arthur."

"Yes, and that would be terrible." Gwen pressed her lips into a solemn line, but her eyes danced. "Wait, why would it be terrible?"

Merlin had intended to keep this to himself, but then, he was never as good at that sort of thing as he should be. He closed his eyes, and this time all was dark, as if become a place where light had never been. Still, better that than to look at Gwen, bright against the white walls of Camelot. "I've already failed him once this week."

Gwen made a small, unformed noise of protest. Glancing over, Merlin saw she was gathering words, but did not wait to hear them. Easier not to stop, now that he had started. "It's my job to make sure things like this don't happen. And I let myself -"

"You almost die for him, and think you should have done more to save him?"

He couldn't quite tell whether she thought this reasonable or ridiculous, a true and valiant expression of duty or the babblings of an idiot. "I thought I was doing the thing I had to do." Merlin's hands were clenched now, crushing the greenery he still held. "But I got it wrong, and it almost cost everything. If I can't make the right choices - if I can't see danger where it really lies -"

"Arthur also fell for her trickery," Gwen said. _And beauty_, a certain tightness in her voice suggested. "I cannot believe that he blames you."

"Yeah, that's not much comfort. If Arthur falls, I've got to still be standing."

And if Arthur was blind, he had to see. Had to see deception when it walked and talked with him, and magic when it hid. Had to see entire plots, black-woven tapestries, from a glimpse of one single thread.

"You made a mistake," Gwen said. Her hand covered his, soft and warm over his cold fist. "You won't make it again."

Simple words, quiet words, but somehow from Gwen they sparked belief. Perhaps it helped that she knew nothing of destinies; there was no chance she had slipped into thinking him some person he had not yet become, might never become. All her strength and certainty was for him, right now, shivering beside the cabbage-bed. Merlin felt a smile breaking out. "Guess you haven't seen me training with Arthur lately. Well - I call it training, but it's mostly him wielding dangerous objects, and me hitting the ground. Same mistakes every time, that's me."

"But that's different, that's _physical_," Gwen said. "You're not very good at that." A pause, while her ears caught up with her words and her cheeks bloomed. "I didn't mean - I know we - but that was just me, you were just lying there -" She took a deep breath. "I meant fighting. You're not very good at fighting."

"Yeah. I know. Guess I'm okay with that." The wind rose, heavy, and Merlin shivered deep. Tree branches bowed and scraped, tendrils of Gwen's dark hair lifted and flew, and by her face she wished to fly away, too. And Merlin didn't want that, so he leaned in, and showed her so.

Their lips met gently, parting only enough to be a whisper of an invitation; their fingers turned and twined and held fast. From every touch-point, heat built, and ashes turned to cinder-glow. Merlin didn't want to pull away, but he thought perhaps he should, and after a minute more of thinking, he finally did.

"Um. I think maybe I got used to that," he said, face bright-hot, head bobbing in Gwen's direction. "And, ah. I need to - would you help me find some burnet for Gaius?"

Her smile was like day itself, familiar and brand-new. The wind still cut, but Merlin was starting to like the morning.


End file.
